This is a beautiful hack. Australian grad student Scott Mitchell turned a (pedigreed, as it turns out) sixties desk lamp into a parabolic microphone, a la Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation.” If that movie had spy-desk-lamps, that is.

the result is a really nice looking, covert, directional mic with integrated amp. the cmoy amp circuit that is used is described in detail and scott does a really nice job of seamlessly integrating the power led, volume control, and headphone socket into the lamp. awesome.

I recently made that crazy “light mod” you spoke of at the end of the article, except it was for my xbox. Check it out and let me know what you think. I even have video links on that web page, as well as the source for the stamp if anyone wants to try it out.

the lightshow he was able to create is pretty fantastic. someone hack this to start up every time one of the controllers is set to vibrate!

in a last ditch effort to avoid thesis work, tony tang and eric pattison hacked together dartmail, a ballistic file transfer protocol.

The head of the Dart contains an RFID tag. By waving the tag over the reader, the ‘shooter’ can attach a handle to any electronic file (located in a shared file system) to the dart. After being shot, the victim can pass the dart over his or her reader (although invariable this is a guy’s thing), and see the file on the screen.

in the video they also propose using the rfid file handle in the form of a business card. but really, 9 out of 10 business contacts would just prefer the pleasantry of being shot with a dart. thanks for the link b-rad.

I’m too impatient to wait for someone else to come up with this, so here’s a quick’n’dirty (working) prototype of a Mac Mini Dock so I can use it in my truck or Jeep as a CarPuter, then be able to unplug it and take it elsewhere.

It consists of milled aluminum stock (perforated for ventilation), ProPoxy formed around the connector ends, and soft/”female” velcro to give a firm but smooth slide on the sides.

What it doesn’t have is a good way to UNplug it yet; I will install a tug strap to be able to disengage it. All connectors are present except for the phone/modem line.

there have been concepts, but i believe this is the first ever real life mac mini dock. nice job!